History

The origin of the Monastery of Ss. Cyril and Methodius began with the return of the two founding Greek Catholic priests, Nicodemus (Makara) and Athanasius (Dębowski), from a stay in the United States of America in 1984, with their intention to establish a religious community. The two hieromonks, former priests of the Jasna Góra Monastery of Pauline monks, had traveled abroad in 1980 where they came to recognize that the Latin Church had drifted away from the ancient roots of the Christian Church and had joined the Byzantine rite Catholic church.

On July 24, 1986, the two hieromonks, after obtaining the blessing of the Greek Catholic bishop, Vladimir Tarasewicz, bought a farm at the end of the village Ujkowice, near Przemysl in southeastern Poland, with a farm building that they made their living quarters and proceeded to built a chapel and the first monastery buildings.

From the very beginning, the monastery met resistance from both the local population and the clergy of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Przemysl. In 1994, as a result of increased conflict with various institutions of the Roman Catholic Church including Latin monks, the Archbishop of Przemysl, and the people of the Roman Catholic parish of Ujkowicach, Archimandrite Nicodemus and Abbot Athanasius decided to become Orthodox Christians and, after asking to be accepted, came under the jurisdiction of the autocephalous Polish Orthodox Church.

Currently 14 monks reside at the monastery, making it the largest male Orthodox monastery in Poland. The monastery lies in an area that in former centuries possessed a substantial Orthodox population. It is a local Orthodox shrine and pilgrimage center. The monastery possesses the Miraculous Icon of Our Lady Watopedzkiej called "consolation and good Council (linchpin)", for which her feast day is February 3..

The monastery continues its building program and also is active in the rebuilding of destroyed churches.